Whatcha think of the 'Opt Out' public option?

POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Thursday, October 29, 2009 05:13
VIEWED: 3421
PAGE 1 of 1

NIKI2

Monday, October 26, 2009 11:42 PM

Well, here we go. It's the "opt out" public option. States have until 2014 to opt out of the public option, and the reform bill moves one step forward.

Quote:
U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said on Monday the Senate's sweeping healthcare reform bill would include a government-run insurance plan that lets states opt out of participation if they choose.

Reid said he would send the bill, which combines two pending Senate measures, to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost analysis and begin Senate debate on the measure as soon as the analysts report their findings.

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE59P4L220091026

Is this the best we'll be able to get? Can the "cats" of the Democratic Party be "herded" to at least vote for cloture whether they agree with the public option or not? Is the opt-out public option a good or bad thing? Whatcha think?

________________________
Together we are greater than the sum of our parts

PIZMOBEACH

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 1:25 AM

I think it's a brilliant (chess) move, OR just great dumb luck. Inspired either way. They got tired of hearing different things from each state so they said, "okay, it's here if you want it, but YOU (meaning, YOUR citizens) decide."

Now each state has to deal with it. Guarantee most will bend under their constituents' demands (whatever those are, and that's fine whatever way they go), whereas the more "general" US opinion could have languished without a true sense of a mandate.

It's too easy to bump the responsibility from state to Fed to state to Fed - no one wants to take it. Now each citizen and each gov personnel knows who's responsible for their own state's situation.

I hope this continues.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:03 AM

Not quite up to the Constitution. The people give their consent of the governed not just by representative election, but by participation by choice in the socioeconomic structure. The right of individuals to opt out is probably our most essential freedom. Don't want to pay car insurance? You don't need a car (would be easier if there were better alternative transportation) but there is a lot of alternative medicine. I think this is a ringer. No state will opt out because they will all want the money, and as a result, we won't be able to opt out. We're going to end up paying for this monster one way or another.

SERGEANTX

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:46 AM

Indeed. The right to "opt out" - for every single individual - is fundamental to the concept of freedom. Statists don't like that little detail, but there it is.

SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

PIRATENEWS

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:30 AM

Is that like opting out of car insurance, driver license, Social Security or income tax?

PIZMOBEACH

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 1:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by piratenews:
Is that like opting out of car insurance, driver license, Social Security or income tax?

Excellent point PN (sincere) - that would be the dreaded "what if?" mosh pit where Theory and Reality meet to do do battle and Theory gets it's hat handed to it every time.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:21 PM

Quote:
Quote:

Is that like opting out of car insurance, driver license, Social Security or income tax?

Excellent point PN (sincere) - that would be the dreaded "what if?" mosh pit where Theory and Reality meet to do do battle and Theory gets it's hat handed to it every time.

Nah, it's no point at all.

You can easily opt out of those things. The Amish opt out of all of them.

The National Healthcare plan only allows you to opt out if you never seek healthcare, and never have children. The UN has a word for forbidding or discouraging populations from having children, it's called genocide.

I see this ending in a policy where you will end up paying for insurance by the number of children you have, to additionally discourage the poor.

Of course this is nothing new. Abortion will kill more people this year than WWII. Looked at that way, In America alone, every day is September 11th.

Warning, this post may offend some views (sorry, truth hurts.)

PIZMOBEACH

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Quote:
Quote:

Is that like opting out of car insurance, driver license, Social Security or income tax?

Excellent point PN (sincere) - that would be the dreaded "what if?" mosh pit where Theory and Reality meet to do do battle and Theory gets it's hat handed to it every time.

Nah, it's no point at all.

You can easily opt out of those things. The Amish opt out of all of them.

Bullshit Dream - No one's going to take on the Amish and bend their arm behind their back - PR nightmare. As an individual you are pretty well screwed, certainly it's not easy to live without those things, and would you want to? No driver's license, or social security and paying no income tax - you could just sit at home and wait for the knock at the door.
Once again Theory gets the crap kicked out of it by Reality.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

KWICKO

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:40 PM

So Drove, are you saying you SHOULD be able to have children you have no way to take care of?

Mike

Let the wild rumpus start!

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:41 PM

Quote:
The National Healthcare plan only allows you to opt out if you never seek healthcare, and never have children.

Well, at least neither one is a huge sacrifice for me.

But the douchebags better hurry and screw everything up, then, if resistance to the government can't afford multiple generations.

Quote:

Bullshit Dream - No one's going to take on the Amish and bend their arm behind their back - PR nightmare. As an individual you are pretty well screwed, certainly it's not easy to live without those things, and would you want to? No driver's license, or social security and paying no income tax - you could just sit at home and wait for the knock at the door.
Once again Theory gets the crap kicked out of it by Reality.

I could also get by without a driver's license. I hate driving anyway. Already have a social security number, though, which kind of pisses me off, but I don't plan on claiming retirement. Can't escape income tax either, but I'm just going to save what money I can earn.

BTW, DT wasn't saying they'd try to force the Amish.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:49 PM

Kwicko: No, he's saying that the government is creating structures to discourage people from having children in general. Artificial inflation of the cost of expenses for living and for having a family.

KWICKO

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 5:48 PM

But SHOULDN'T people be discouraged to some extent from having children, at least from having so many? Or should we be encouraged to keep having litters of six or eight at a pop, knowing full well that there's no way in hell we can support them, short of getting a reality show on TV?

We have "sin taxes" for every other damn thing in this country - tobacco, booze, etc. Why NOT have a "sin tax" on having kids, instead of giving out tax breaks for it?

I'm not advocating one way or another; I'm just asking questions. As a libertarian/anarchist, I'm hoping you can give me some insight into the conundrum of not wanting to limit people's rights, versus how to pay for people's ill-informed choices? If you don't discourage people from having children they can't afford to care for, who's going to pay? Who pays for their schooling? Their healthcare? The rest of us?

Mike

Let the wild rumpus start!

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:02 PM

I say, as an anarchist, that capitalism itself is a restriction on family size that probably shouldn't be. You talk about "paying" for it like having children is a negative, reducer of survival on an individual-and-society level.

One of the problems you might cite is of course the issue of food. But that's another problem with capitalism in supply and demand: we let some food go bad to keep up the prices so farmers get paid enough to want to stay farmers. Another problem is of course water, which in the west is a serious consideration, and some amount of planning and management is necessary.

Look, I'm not saying that people shouldn't be responsible and make good decisions. Even though I agree with DT that there's a clandestine movement to depopulate the earth, I also agree that overpopulation is a problem and we can't just keep growing until we've used everything up (I advocate studying space travel and terraforming technology, and implementing sustainability).

I'm only saying that the system shouldn't be set up to discourage certain choices if they don't hurt anyone else. The issues about cost associated with raising children... Those are all social constructs.

In my ideal society, children are seen as future potential, for productivity, creativity, etc. Children have parents they live with, but we also have to acknowledge that the community already plays a large role in the upbringing of children. Short of the extent where the community interferes with the parent's efforts to raise their own children, the more a community connects with a child, and the more the child connects with their community, the more human sympathy/empathy there is and the less crime, murder, theft etc.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:08 PM

Quote:
forbidding or discouraging populations from having children, it's called genocide.

Bull

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:14 PM

It's also called War, Sig, and a lot of the nations who are part of the UN, and interested in a global government ARE also interested in manageable population sizes.

I believe in sustainability, but you can't deny there isn't an element of sustainability that says "wouldn't it be nice if there were just so much FEWER of us?"

SIGNYM

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:46 PM

I read the UN definition of genocide, and "discouraging" births isn't part of it. If that were the case, then the wealthy are being genocided because their access to birth control and the myriad of life options available to them clearly discourages having children. You could say that a high standard of living is then a genocidal act! I think DT has stretched the definition past the breaking point.

Quote:

I believe in sustainability, but you can't deny there isn't an element of sustainability that says "wouldn't it be nice if there were just so much FEWER of us?"

And so....? We're beyond the limits of the carbon and nitrogen cycles to absorb our waste, we have a dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi River the size of Massachusetts and a garbage patch in the Pacific twice the size of Texas. Facts are facts, DT. It wouldn't be "nice" if there were fewer of us, it will be necessary. And as we've bred up to - and beyond- the carrying capacity of the biosphere, we've disturbed equilibria that have kept the planet reasonably habitable for the past several millenia. I believe that in the near future, our population WILL decrease, but it won't be from any rational action on our part, and it won't be gentle.

Mother nature is not kind. The earth has been smacked by meteors the size of Mount Everest, frozen over with ice about 2 miles thick, baked dry, driven down to oxygen as low as 16% and as boosted high as 25%. Volcanos and lava flows the size of Texas have checkered our geologic history. Given that instability of our basic environment, I think the rational thing to do is to decrease our population from about six billion to about one. We should have multiple population centers across the globe capable of survining independently, each with about two years worth of food and water, and seed stocks representing the gamut of vegetation. But instead, pretty much as unthinkingly as bacteria in a petri dish or rabbits on the plains, we just keep on multiplying until outside forces intervene.

Not very smart, are we?

And now, back to our regularly-scheduled discussion.
----------------

Done

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:13 PM

Quote:
I read the UN definition of genocide, and "discouraging" births isn't part of it. If that were the case, then the wealthy are being genocided because their access to birth control and the myriad of life options available to them clearly discourages having children. You could say that a high standard of living is then a genocidal act! I think DT has stretched the definition past the breaking point.

Oops, bitten by the snark.

I consider myself a feminist. I wouldn't ever deny birth control or abortions to someone who needed it, or even someone who was concerned about the impact children might have on being able to support themselves, or who had concerns about their ability to raise the children, or the obvious cases of rape, incest, and health problems.

The problem is, and DT has probably given you this argument before, but there's some literature in regards to a legal case, when a lady, now widely considered one of the first feminists began popularizing abortion and birth control and was prosecuted for it. The pamphlet she wrote in her defense is... Strange, to say the least. She seems to be advocating eugenics, to what end I don't know.

Even women towards the blue collar end of things can afford birthcontrol, and I consider them among the more underpaid part of our society. And I would also say that I still think that socio-economic concerns in regards to raising another child is what is the predominant reason for birth control or abortion. You might be better off than some, but you can still have money concerns, or be worried that you aren't ready/mature enough (another way of saying I don't know if I can afford or support having children. College loans may be an issue, or job hunting, etc.)

http://pages.prodigy.net/wrjohnston/policy/abortion/abreasons.html

There is an active effort to encourage the nuclear family model, with only one or two children. Two children is stagnancy, one child is population decline.

I don't particularly have a problem with that if it's the choice of the family/parents, but I do have a problem with the increasingly common desire to penalize people who have more children. Unless they're on welfare, it's no one's business but their own. And even on welfare, even if the parents aren't productive members of society, is it determined that the children will never be, either? I'd be interested to see the numbers of how many children of long-term welfare recipients become welfare recipients themselves.

WULFENSTAR

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:14 PM

Can we Opt-Out of Federal government? Sure we can.

Give it a few more months.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:17 PM

To answer the question: I think the "opt out" tack is political legerdemain, but I like it. The reason WHY I like it is because it bypasses Senate "moderates" (ie corporatists). These so-called moderates reject the public option not because their constituents reject it but because their Senatorial pockets have been lined and their honorable palms have been crossed. Max Baucus is a good example, so is Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman (Joe's home state has a huge number of insurances incorporated there, so Joe has always been kind to insurances and related financial institutions.)

PIZMOBEACH

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But instead, pretty much as unthinkingly as bacteria in a petri dish or rabbits on the plains, we just keep on multiplying until outside forces intervene.

Not very smart, are we?

Yo! That's REALITY Holmes!

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:29 PM

I just gave you what I think would be the ethical solution to this; not war, which is being used this way, and not indirect statutes on the number of children people can have, but space exploration AND sustainability.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:34 PM

Quote:
Oops, bitten by the snark.

That wasn't snark, Byte. That was a logical extension of DT's definition. FWIW, here is the UN definition
a) Killing members of the group;
b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group [eg forced sterilization]
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Quote:
The problem is, and DT has probably given you this argument before, but there's some literature in regards to a legal case, when a lady, now widely considered one of the first feminists began popularizing abortion and birth control and was prosecuted for it. The pamphlet she wrote in her defense is... Strange, to say the least. She seems to be advocating eugenics, to what end I don't know.

You mean Margaret Sanger. She was. But so what? That's like saying that since the internet began with a military application (DARPA) we should reject it now.

Quote:
And I would also say that I still think that socio-economic concerns in regards to raising another child is what is the predominant reason for birth control or abortion.

There are several bumps on the way to at least stabilizing our population. The first is the relative powerlessness of woman in many parts of the globe: Africa, many areas of the middle east and south Asia (eg India), and Central and South America. These women are subject to wartime or traditionally-accepted rape, forced marriages, often with no access to prenatal and maternal care, much less birth control, STD treatment, or abortion services. Basically, societies treat them as baby-factories. (lack of access)

The second is the economics of their situation: even with access to birth control, women in agricultural societies WANT more children. Why? Because at least half will die before the age of five, and they need the remainder to work the fields and (hopefully) take care of them in their old age. (economic security)

Third is self-expectation. Having six, seven, or more children was considered "the norm". But television is changing that idea. The telenovelas (and their Indian and Pakistani equivalents) are showing women with fewer children who are more in control over their (more interesting) lives. Not sure where we're disagreeing, Byte.

There will always be "outside" forces on women to have fewer (OR MORE) children than they really "want" These decisions aren't made in a vacuum. To imply- as DT did- that a society which is not actively aiding every decision along these lines is somehow prcaticing genocide is a stretch.

Quote:
space exploration

Sheer fantasy. We can't even get green power going. How in hell do you think we'd have a significant space-emigration plan? Like I said: Unless there is a program where peeps are lifted into space and shoved out the airlock (or even more efficiently, NOT lifted into space, just shoved into a killing-machine which looks like a space ship) the resources and organization for this option are way beyond us.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:15 PM

Quote:
You mean Margaret Sanger. She was. But so what? That's like saying that since the internet began with a military application (DARPA) we should reject it now.

No it's not. Did I say we should reject birth control, abortion, or planned parenthood?

All I'm saying is that maybe we should keep a close eye on who's advocating it and for what end, in case some of those influences have stuck around.

Quote:
There are several bumps on the way to at least stabilizing our population. The first is the relative powerlessness of woman in many parts of the globe: Africa, many areas of the middle east and south Asia (eg India), and Central and South America. These women are subject to wartime or traditionally-accepted rape, forced marriages, often with no access to prenatal and maternal care, much less birth control, STD treatment, or abortion services. Basically, societies treat them as baby-factories. (lack of access)

The second is the economics of their situation: even with access to birth control, women in agricultural societies WANT more children. Why? Because at least half will die before the age of five, and they need the remainder to work the fields and (hopefully) take care of them in their old age. (economic security)

Third is self-expectation. Having six, seven, or more children was considered "the norm". But television is changing that idea. The telenovelas (and their Indian and Pakistani equivalents) are showing women with fewer children who are more in control over their (more interesting) lives. Not sure where we're disagreeing, Byte.

There will always be "outside" forces on women to have fewer (OR MORE) children than they really "want" These decisions aren't made in a vacuum. To imply- as DT did- that a society which is not actively aiding every decision along these lines is somehow prcaticing genocide is a stretch.

Admitted, birth control as genocide, not so much. But it is half of the depopulation scheme. The other half IS war/genocide.

I just want people to make choices for themselves is all. If they're making a choice in regards to gender role or family size/structure that culturally appeals to them, I don't think that's our place to intervene. We can educate, but we shouldn't dictate policy.

Quote:
Sheer fantasy. We can't even get green power going. How in hell do you think we'd have a significant space-emigration plan? Like I said: Unless there is a program where peeps are lifted into space and shoved out the airlock (or even more efficiently, NOT lifted into space, just shoved into a killing-machine which looks like a space ship) the resources and organization for this option are way beyond us.

And I've already argued with you about that because I think self-sustaining colonies, given enough technological advancement, are a possibility and THE only ETHICAL long-term solution to the population problem.

Staying on earth as a long-term survival plan with no alternatives is basically choosing extinction, because if we don't kill ourselves off, or pollute ourselves to death, or cause MORE unforseen problems with delicate planet systems, the sun will eventually explode.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:29 PM

Quote:
And I've already argued with you about that because I think self-sustaining colonies, given enough technological advancement, are a possibility and THE only ETHICAL long-term solution to the population problem.

No. They may be the answer to our ultimate survival, but they are NOT the answer to our population problem here on earth. Unless you feel that "the answer" is to give up this planet as a lost cause and move elsewhere. In which case, I submit that we really haven't learned anything, and will simply be exporting our ignorance with us.

NIKI2

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:49 PM

Sig:

Quote:
To answer the question: I think the "opt out" tack is political legerdemain, but I like it. The reason WHY I like it is because it bypasses Senate "moderates" (ie corporatists). These so-called moderates reject the public option not because their constituents reject it but because their Senatorial pockets have been lined and their honorable palms have been crossed. Max Baucus is a good example, so is Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman (Joe's home state has a huge number of insurances incorporated there, so Joe has always been kind to insurances and related financial institutions.)

I agree; every word. And of course now it may be a moot point, given fucking Lieberman has stated he will vote with the Republicans on the filibuster. His state's REALLY got to get rid of the man, he can't decide whether he's Repub, Dem, Ind. or WHAT the hell he is. Except he's whatever fulfills his own agenda and keeps him in office!!

The man pisses me off no end...

It's not a great public option, tho'--from what I hear, you can only make use of it if you can't GET private insurance, it'll only cover a small number of people, and given that, it can't survive with only a small contingency of people, some (maybe many) of whom can't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions so they're already sick. Built to fail? Sheeeet...

Maybe in ANOTHER twenty years? When we're all bankrupted by insurance companies, many of us dead because of lack of treatment or poor treatment, many of us having lost our homes because of exhorbidant insurance costs? Whooopee...NOT!

Here's a quote which is DEFINITELY from Robin Williams: "Politics: from the Latin "poli", meaning "many", and "tics", meaning bloodsucking creatures."

________________________
Together we are greater than the sum of our parts

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:54 PM

Quote:
No. They may be the answer to our ultimate survival, but they are NOT the answer to our population problem here on earth. Unless you feel that "the answer" is to give up this planet as a lost cause and move elsewhere. In which case, I submit that we really haven't learned anything, and will simply be exporting our ignorance with us.

And I'm not. I also recall mentioning sustainability. My thinking is we should be focusing on terraforming and space exploration research instead of resource conflicts and warfare to reduce the population.

I don't like force and authoritarian style laws to get people to comply with population measures, and I don't like killing people to meet population goals. I do approve of educational measures, and informing people about the potential problems of over-population, and green technology, and improving technology and irrigation to produce better crop/food yields. And I also believe it's important to preserve wilderness, conserve resources, and not waste.

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:09 PM

Okay,

There was a lot of misinterpretation posted here, and I stopped reading, because I don't have time to read a book on why I'm wrong, so I'll just address Mike because he hit the core of the point that you're all missing:

Ability to care for children or yourself is not defined by dollars. In fact, life doesn't really require money. I view it as a necessary evil, not a goal. I think I'm in good company here with just about every religious or philosophical leader over the last few millennia.

One of the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan, whether people like him or not, was to restructure the tax system so that people living below the poverty line never owe any tax. This is an option that anyone can take, simply by opting to live in poverty. Of course in order to do it, you have to carry no debt. I filed my taxes every year, but rarely owe anything, due to a lack of income. Anyone else could do the same.

Ralph Nader chooses to not have a car. This would be inconvenient for me, so here's a need for money to pay insurance so I can have one. However, if the US had a public transportation system like Europe, I would gladly give up a car. I find them to be a pain in the ass. If I needed one, I could always rent. Renters carry their own insurance. This would make "driving" a "pay on demand" service, like all services should be.

One tax that I pay regularly which I think is unconstitutional but I'm stuck with it: Property Tax. You should be allowed to have a home without automatically incurring debt. There are other taxes I get stuck with, but they tend to be associated with purchases, not just sales tax, but taxed embedded into the price of various goods and services.

A tax-free society would clearly kick the ass of this society, and that's the real problem we're having internationally: A lot of countries we outsource to for tax reasons alone.

But a tax is a tax is a tax, whether it comes with the word on the top in a bill paid to the govt, or as a bill you have to pay for some service you're obligated to buy, or embedded in the price of something else.

However, if you can opt to make your own food, education, etc. you don't need to buy into this society. You can opt out.

For the record, people go after the Amish all the time in lawsuits. The Amish always win not because it's like beating up a puppy, but because they are within your constitutional rights.

The new healthcare proposal might make opting out impossible, and create a USSA. Currently Amish families have 7.5 children on average. They buy their land and feed and educate their children. If you multiply 7.5 times health insurance premiums, you could take that option away from them. They don't have very high incomes, but they can support their own. It's very easy to imagine a situation where suddenly they would only be able to have 1.5 children, and fairly soon their society would be wiped out.

Speaking here from the ranks of the intentionally poor, if you want freedom, it lies in poverty. For now... until they take that option away.

On more footnote: Our medical system was recently ranked by the UN as a "net zero benefit" meaning, as likely to harm or kill you as heal or save you. Perhaps this is why they are now pushing to force you to buy the product.

Another failed system that is now a "net negative" is our public education system. Yes, children who do not get a public education on average learn more than those who do. It's amazing what you can learn with 8 free hours a day. If someone wanted to point to a freedom that has already been infringed upon, there's one. I have to pay a few hundred a year in "school tax" to support this system, because a choose to have a home. Well, a home is a more basic necessity than a car, it's pretty bogus. Additionally, I'd point out that the tax is the same regardless of your income, or whether or not you have children in school. Or in my case, whether you used the "service" at all yourself.

The proposal that you must buy health insurance is a large enough financial burden that it would crush

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:34 PM

Oh, and there is no population problem, there's a resource management problem. The Earth is filled with species and populations that vastly outnumber and outweigh the human race.

A parallel:
If you were to drive a tractor trailer, for an equal eco-balance, your entire cab would be filled with mice, probably your engine too, and the first trailor with ants, the second with termites, the road you drove on would be made entirely out of shrimp, and the surrounding visible landscape, entirely out of plankton.

Given this image, you can see what I mean: All these other species live here with almost no visible impact on our planet. What we have is a resource management issue.

A typical field crop yields about 200lbs of digestible foodstuffs per acre. The maximum biomass yield of an arable acre is around 20 tons. That means we're operating at about 0.5% efficiency in terms of food production. This plummets if you move from a vegetarian diet to a carnivorous one, which operates at about 0.1%.

The other species on this list don't have that problem, hence, life is good. We still could, without tilling a single extra acre, if we had a decent food distribution system. We could easily build rail or boat systems that used only solar and wind power, and irradiation as a preservative, with no harm to the people ingesting the food... or more simply: move the people to where the food is.

We don't, because we manage resources poorly. If we switch to GMO foods, we could easily move up 10 times, and conceivably 100 times, still without tilling a single additional acre of land.

The another option would be to resurrect land that is being destroyed by bad farming, and increase the yield per acre.

Human population is nowhere near critical, but human resource management is a disaster, and has been ever since Lucy. Not to blame it on Lucy particularly, but the earliest human remains were found dated at 3 million years, in the middle of the Sahara, at the time, a rainforest. The propensity for cutting down trees and even more for herding cattle, among humans, is the most destructive force the Earth has seen in 65 million years.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:39 PM

DT, I have no idea what you're talking about. The latest version of the "public option", as I've read it, is that it will be a government-run voluntary offering for those unable to buy insurance premiums. It will be paid by premiums, and the government will have to negotiate payment rates, as opposed to setting rates by fiat (like Medicare).

I haven't heard anything about mandatory insurance, but even if it was... if you're THAT poor, you qualify for Medicare/ Medicaid anyway.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:56 PM

DT: Is there a point in the future that you think human population could conceivably be a problem? Based on the fact that we are larger than the species mentioned and consume more poundage of food per year and are more technologically advanced? If such a point exists, should we make plans for it?

(I'm sorry that I misrepresented you, but I've never quite been sold on the idea that there is no over-population problem and never will be. If there is a population problem, and I think there is, my recommendation is something that will help/benefit us anyway. The important thing I think is to not get carried away by sensationalism or doomsday scenarios)

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 1:41 AM

Sig,

I don't read all the healthcare articles, so I missed the details of the latest one. You've clearly missed quite a few yourself. The "You must buy health insurance" plan was the one Obama ran on, as did Hillary, and it was the major plan and has been the major plan since he came into office. The only question so far has been "how to help the poor."

The real concern is not for the poor, but for the poor companies who could use the extra customers. The dominant plan was the Max Baucus plan last I checked. This would set rates at around $5,000, if you were poor, you would get a "limited" plan, which would cost around $2,000 for the first two years, after that, there was no guarantee of discount. That plan seems to have been pretty well shot down now, but some sort of compromise will result.

Right now under medicare, my mom pays the first $500. Under medicaid, I pay nothing, which is pretty close to what our healthcare system is worth. My worry is that there will be some plan that leaves the insurance middlemen in place, doesn't control costs, and forces everyone to subscribe to this ridiculous system.

The solution to the problem is extremely simple: Deregulate the whole thing. Make this a competitive consumer service. You go, you pay for services rendered, you don't like it, go to someone else. That would keep service high and cost low. If they harm people, doctors could face charges. This is no mystery, this is true in lots of countries in the world, and it works.

Having govt. healthcare there as a benchmark competitor is not a bad idea, like they do in Britain. I don't know any brits who actually use the service, but it does set a base of price/quality standards which competitors must exceed in order to draw away traffic, which they do handily, but for a great deal less than we pay.

Also, this is no mystery to anyone on this board.

Almost all of you are my age or older, and must've grown up under this system just like I did. Anyone else recall when a doctor's visit was three bucks, and a pharmacy was where you went for lunch, and medicine, and the pharmacist was more likely to tell you about the various drugs than the doc? That was America not very long ago. It seems like everyone has an incredibly short memory.

We don't need insurance companies, and we don't need a govt. program. We don't need an AMA, or malpractice insurance. A doctor is skilled labor, and his time should be worth the same as any other skilled labor, maybe 40, 50 bucks an hour, depending on the value of the dollar of course. An MRI is not a spaceship, it's a camera, taking pictures with it doesn't cost thousands of dollars. You only need 1 MRI machine per X number of doctors, depending on the demand for MRIs, and the doctors don't have to buy it, it can be, and often is, a separate on demand service.

What almost no one is getting is that after the long delay, the push for a national healthcare system is not a "victory." It's the death throes of a dying industry. They've been superseded by superior technology, and now want to have their customers locked in at ridiculous rates.

Someone of course will come up with a free market system...

Okay, so a short answer to your overall question is: Yes, I think it's an excellent idea that states be able to opt out. Maybe one of them will have the sense to build a superior system. It'll probably be Vermont or somewhere that thinks independently. It's unlikely to be New York.

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 2:35 AM

Byte,

It's conceivable but unlikely. The overwhelming evolutionary trend seems to be "humans as food source," a problem we created ourselves through habitat destruction. A lot of diseases that plague humans do so because of evolution, they used to plague something else, that we killed off, took their land, destroyed the local higher life forms and vegetation, didn't use it, and left all the parasites to find a new home: us. IMHO? The end result of our demographic trend is that the human race will probably be wiped out, save a small % of technologically advanced people who can fight disease, and another small population so remote that they are unaffected. Also, when it does happen, I don't think that it will be the first time. I suspect we're in a cycle of this nature.

If the human race were to survive to a point where we reach a population of a trillion or so, which I think is easily sustainable, based on the potential yield of land we currently use, and based on the success of species more successful than ourselves, that we will probably survive through the development of vastly superior technology and the organizational ability to share that technology globally. If we can do that, it should stand to reason that we would also be able to colonize other planets. As there seems to be no shortage of planets, again, I don't see this as a problem.

That, of course, is globally. Locally, it's a problem all over the place. I expect to see a lot of political upheaval over who produces food vs. who consumes it. This is really the main reason I think these technologies are so important. You have a lot of local environmental destruction related to agriculture, and a lot of ethnic and political conflicts over who has the food and who controls the distribution. If we were able to radically ratchet up the food production per acre, the would help a lot. It would also be of tremendous assistance to develop revitalization technologies so that semi-arid land such as Northern Nigeria could be rehabilitated into decent farmland. This requires pretty simple technology we already have, and someone to give a damn, which the halls of power seem desperately short on.

The size of humans is not important. The collective biomass of humans is. We do not consume more food as a species than do termites. We just manage it very poorly.

IIRC, around 97% of all life lives in the sea, which contains around 99% of the earth's atmosphere by weight. Land-based life has a much greater asset, photosynthesis, which is the source of all food. The basic human requires around 900 calories a day to survive at optimum health.

Simple enzymatic processing of plant matter could produce around twice that per pound of vegetable dryweight, including oils, proteins and carbohydrates.

In theory, you could support over a thousand people per acre, but planet Earth could not. You'd run into much more serious problems than that first. Every species runs the risk of becoming a primary food source as population increases. There are an unknown number of species on the planet, but in the trillions, most of whom are looking for something to eat. At a population of around 100 billion, the human race would become a primary target for anything that was looking.

Fighting off diseases is a matter of technology, actually stopping the forces of nature is probably impossible. I'd say that, theoretically, the planet could support a trillion or so, but ecologically, at around 100 billion it would be very difficult for the population to increase, as humans would be eaten at a faster rate than we could make new humans, any microcosm study would yield this sort of trend. Logistically, I think the proximity of humans and the communicability of diseases would cause a population collapse at around 10 billion or so. I think the support level would be around 1 billion, and things would begin to climb again from there.

I've used figures of ten here to show a logarithmic projection, it would take a lot more math to come up with exact numbers, but some other trends are fairly ob

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 2:44 AM

Lots to think about and digest. Thanks.

PIZMOBEACH

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:12 PM

Geebus Dream... talk about biomass... I think your posts consumed 5 acres of corn.

If your intention was to stun with sheer volume you have succeeded - I have so many contentions but I just don't have the time or inclination to post them. Huzzah for you! Let's just say in general I find your suggestions utterly fantastic, completely fascinating to read, and totally impractical.

As to my original point - litigation by a neighbor is not the same as the US Gov suing to change the core practices of the Amish. So, for them to ignore mainstream rules is not proof that "it's easy to opt out." A small point.

Disclosure: I have a brother who has opted out of most everything - especially work. So my mom pays for his rent, health care, car, etc. She is 80, a widow, and heart broken, but damnit, he is free! His principles are intact! Victory for him!

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:26 PM

Yanno, I keep half expecting Siggy to break out in Agent Smiths "humans are a virus" rant from The Matrix cause that's really the wind I feel blowing off that argument.

As for GMO foods, one of the reasons folk view them askance, and some nations would rather starve than accept shipment is a very real distrust, and not without some cause, of the corporations involved.

Given the catastrophic effects of other "help" of that nature, some of which have been proven to be entirely deliberate, can you really blame them for viewing any further "help" from those same people every bit as skeptically as a native american would view an offer of free blankets from the US Gov ?

I also highly reccommend you read the Isaac Asimov short story "The Winnowing" for another reason folk might be suspicious - if you think the powers that be are above that sort of behavior for even a moment, there's nothin useful I could tell ya.

That's why the trailers for 2012 make me laugh - if the powers that be actually HAD an escape vessel for such a disaster, they'd NEVER let us peons on it no matter how much room they had, they'd just stuff in more of their little yes men and luxuries and to hell with us less-than-human beasts of burden who exist soley to enrich them...

You wanna solve problems of this nature, you have to strike the root, attack and destroy the structures which encourage it by making our social "values" competitive instead of cooperative, and do so to such an extreme that both competitors destroy each other and the resources besides for no effective gain.

A bombed out and poisoned field surrounded by piles of bones is of no use to anyone.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:51 PM

Byte

A very smart person once mentioned that we will not be able to live anywhere else but earth - b/c we are adapted to the most exquisite nuance of minerals and trace elements, and food sources (which we are royally screwing up BTW with our pollution and industrial food.) You can get short-term visits 'out there', but not long term survival generation after generation.

That limitation makes the idea of terraforming just as useless. B/c we don't know in enough detail WHAT we need to turn a planet into, even if it was possible.

On top of that, we would have to be able to create a self-sustaining eco-system on every planet. Otherwise, we would be stuck with the 'industrial' model of terraforming - large scale use of energy to create an atmosphere, recycle water, modulate the weather etc.

Personally, I don't think we are up to doing either (creating an ecosystem or industrial terraforming), certainly not in the time scale we need it done. Quick back of the envelope calculation - are we up to terraforming earth and repairing its damage in the next 30 years ? If not, then it isn't going to be the answer we need.

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Back to your regularly scheduled program.

RIVERLOVE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:56 PM

I think Harry Reid will soon be "opted out" of the Senate. Maybe the next majority leader will be able to provide some cohesive leadership.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:58 PM

I distinctly remember calling space travel and terraforming the LONG TERM solution. And I also remember saying we CURRENTLY need anti-pollution measures and clean-up efforts and sustainability. Both for while we develop these technologies, and during the colonization and growth period.

Frem, you and me both. I also have to say I'm skeptical of genetically modified food, some of the stuff that's been distributed to Africa was specifically made to not reseed when done, so that Africans would become reliant on purchasing seeds year after year. Economic malice. And couldn't some genetically modified food be engineered to produce certain drugs and chemicals? Erg...

But better processing for food is good, get more substance out of them, increase output, nothing bad about that unless something is introduced.

RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:00 PM

OK then - my bad. I offer my apologies.

I still think it's beyond us for a long, long LOOOOOONG time !

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Back to your regularly scheduled program.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:07 PM

Quote:
Yanno, I keep half expecting Siggy to break out in Agent Smiths "humans are a virus" rant from The Matrix cause that's really the wind I feel blowing off that argument.

If we're a virus, Frem, it's only to ourselves. The earth will survive us; it's been through fire and brimstone and frozen hell and mass extinctions before. We need to look at our collective selves with something like rational self-interest.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:18 PM

Heh... I guess maybe I just wasn't clear on that, so no worries, Rue. Obviously I didn't get across that while I think this is something we should be working on right now for later, we should be doing some effort at management of resources and limiting pollution in the meantime.

I'm still not sure what to do about population, the only thing I'm comfortable with is people who willingly choose to have less children. But considering how we live in a climate of fear and intentional economic instability, I'm not sure how much of that choice is a choice. The only thing I feel like I can ethically support is reducing the IMPACTS of population as much as possible and educational efforts.

And still another problem exists there, we know the consequences of population growth, but we don't know if there's any consequences for reduction of population. I think I floated an idea to you before that what might be going on is a selection towards a small upper class and a large worker class. I know there are vested interests that want a small population, the question that concerns me is what KIND of population, and for what end.

RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:20 PM

"The earth will survive us; it's been through fire and brimstone and frozen hell and mass extinctions before."

There IS a chance we will turn the planet into Venus with runaway (positive feedback loop) global warming, complete with sulfuric acid atmosphere.

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Silence is consent.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:41 PM

Hmm. The run-away greenhouse effect...

I have to say that I'm not sure we could ever really turn our planet into Venus. For one, Venus has a predominantly sulfuric atmosphere, as you said... But except for the sulfides from volcanoes, Earth doesn't have much naturally occurring sulfides on the surface. And we're a closed system, so we're not going to spontaneously generate it. Unless you mean from thermophile bacteria? But even then, the sulfides they produce have to already be in the environment.

A primitive earth methane-CO2-water atmosphere would be more likely in the event of an earth run-away greenhouse. Though even still it'd be different, because there's still so much nitrogen and oxygen that's been released since the Archaen.

The actual possibility of a run-away green house earth though, I don't know. Historically, we've had double the amount of CO2 ppm in the atmosphere, and more methane, and didn't have a run-away greenhouse.

I think there's a such thing as global warming. I even think there's been a correlative rise in CO2. The rate of CO2 increase might be dangerous in that it overwhelms natural systems and the ability of organisms to adapt. We could release the Siberian methane traps, or even methane traps on the ocean floor.

But as for any calculations or models about earth going to a real run-away greenhouse, I haven't seen any, nor have I seen any estimates on a maximum safe concentrations for atmospheric CO2 and methane.

The thing to be concerned about is the melting ice-caps and thermal expansion of the ocean. It won't kill all life on earth, but that could theoretically flood the coastlines, where a lot of major cities are. That may not be necessarily ruinous, Venice seems functional through engineering, even though it's sinking into the Mediterranean. We also have to be concerned about stronger storms, droughts, and duststorms. And, the warmer water does seem to be putting a strain on oceanic species, which are already stressed from overfishing.

RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:42 PM

Byte

India has voluntary (no) population control, China has the 'one child' (per urban couple) policy. India has a 2.76 total fertility rate (births per woman), China a 1.77. India has a per capita income of $1,000, China has $6,000. India's GDP growth has been as high as 9%, recently falling to 6%, China's GDP growth has been consistently the highest in the world over the last 10 years, as high as 30%, recently dropping to 11%.

Policy decisions to discourage large families, such as withdrawing government benefits or imposing financial penalties, seems to be a workable strategy resulting in overall economic and environmental improvement.

Improving the quality of woman's lives and having good access to contraception and abortion results in a demographic transition which drops family size considerably. In a country where resources are stretched however, and there are not enough resources to create the circumstances for a demographic transition, formal family size limits may be the most practical solution.

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RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:46 PM

"I have to say that I'm not sure we could ever really turn our planet into Venus."

"Sulfur is 13th most abundant element in Earth’s crust (0.1%) and 9th most abundant in sediments."

You'd have to get the earth hot enough to drive the sulfur hydration reaction to form sulfuric acid.

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BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:50 PM

Yeah, but I think I read that Venus has something like a 98% sulfuric atmosphere? I'm just not sure how Earth could get anywhere near that.

RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:54 PM

AH !

I wasn't being quantitative. I was just considering an unliveable sulfuric acid corrosive atmosphere.

But, as my thoughts wander, let's say the sulfuric acid atmos does happen. And it eats the carbonate rocks, which release more CO2 ... not going anywhere with this. Just thinking.

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Silence is consent.

PIZMOBEACH

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

But better processing for food is good, get more substance out of them, increase output, nothing bad about that unless something is introduced.

Please read "The Omnivore's Dilema" - it talks directly to that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006
040601701.html

"Oil underlines Pollan's story about agribusiness, but corn is its focus. American cattle fatten on corn (even though they are designed to digest grass and have to take drugs to digest corn). Corn also feeds poultry, pigs and sheep, even farmed fish. But that's just the beginning. In addition to dairy products from corn-fed cows and eggs from corn-fed chickens, corn starch, corn oil and corn syrup make up key ingredients in prepared foods. High-fructose corn syrup sweetens everything from juice to toothpaste. Even the alcohol in beer is corn-based. Corn is in everything from frozen yogurt to ketchup, from mayonnaise and mustard to hot dogs and bologna, from salad dressings to vitamin pills. "Tell me what you eat," said the French gastronomist Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, "and I will tell you what you are." We're corn."

Notice any similarities to what corn is used for with livestock and the US waistline?

"Is eating all this corn good for us? Who knows? We think we've tamed nature, but we're just beginning to learn about all that we don't yet know. Ships were once provided with plenty of food, but sailors got scurvy because they needed vitamin C. We're sailing on the same sea, thinking we're eating well but still discovering nutrients in our food that we hadn't known were there -- that we don't yet know we need."

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:01 PM

Quote:
Policy decisions to discourage large families, such as withdrawing government benefits or imposing financial penalties, seems to be a workable strategy resulting in overall economic and environmental improvement.

China and India don't have inflation like we do. Hell, you can buy a computer over there for $200 bucks. From what I understand people can live on incomes of $1,000 to $6,000 a year over there. I'm not sure domestic income is comparable to the U.S. or is an argument for reducing family sizes, not for the benefit of the citizens of those nations, any way.

And I mentioned that policies for reduced family sizes unnerve me, so I can't really support that, despite your arguments for improved lifestyle and better financial stability. It still has to be a CHOICE, otherwise your dictating matters of personal life.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
AH !

I wasn't being quantitative. I was just considering an unliveable sulfuric acid corrosive atmosphere.

But, as my thoughts wander, let's say the sulfuric acid atmos does happen. And it eats the carbonate rocks, which release more CO2 ... not going anywhere with this. Just thinking.

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Silence is consent.

I was thinking a bit about that myself. I'd have to look at the chemical reactions, but by releasing CO2 from carbonates, and theoretically having evaporated a lot of water, you might also make carbonic acid. I think that's actually a low temperature reaction, you might even get that happening before sulfuric acid. But, this is pretty speculative.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:07 PM

Pizmo: I know that we put a lot of corn, particularly corn husks in pet food for fiber, and that's actually bad for digestion.

Yeah, it's a problem, but I didn't mean that kind of processing. DT and I were talking about processing food such that you can retrieving pure proteins from stuff that was previously waste or considered unedible... not processing where you're canning peaches, for example, and putting them into corn syrup.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:22 PM

Quote:
It still has to be a CHOICE, otherwise your dictating matters of personal life.

I think reality will catch up with us, Byte, and it will no longer be a choice. AFA Indai versus China, your point that it's easy to live on $1000/ year is specious. India has widespread, grinding poverty. Their latest foray into laissez-faire capitalism HAS succeeded in creating a middle class, but only at the expense of the poor.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:54 PM

Technically, you can live on $1000 a year here in the United States. I think DT made that point somewhere.

But you bring up a good point as well: looking at that figure, considering the number of poor in India, it doesn't seem like that's the likely average income per year. I wonder if India is selectively surveying.

"Reality will catch up with us, and it will no longer be a choice." You say that with urgency, but what I hear is something that freaks the hell out of me, and not for the reasons you want.

RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:19 PM

"China and India don't have inflation like we do."

I wasn't comparing China and India to the US, I was comparing them to each other. Relative to India, China's people seem to be faring quite well with the policies. GDP is soaring and income is quite high (compared to India's).

Granted, there are other major policies at work - economic systems for one. And I would attribute most improvements to those other policies. But if formal population limits are a major negative factor, I think they would show up in the economics. From the data, it appears they don't have a large negative impact.

"And I mentioned that policies for reduced family sizes unnerve me ..."

If it were a matter of forced abortion or sterilization I can see that. There is the perception of individual control that needs to be maintained to keep people happy. But tax policies like :you get an exemption for one child, nothing for the second, and a per-child penalty for more than two: might satisfy the need for perceived control along with policies that encourage limits.

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Silence is consent.

RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:24 PM

"I'd have to look at the chemical reactions, but by releasing CO2 from carbonates, and theoretically having evaporated a lot of water, you might also make carbonic acid."

But releasing a lot of carbonic acid into the atmosphere encourages the equilibrium to shift the other way to the formation of carbonates. (noted in chemistry under this notation)

[CO2] [H2O] <-> [H2CO3]

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SIGNYM

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:25 PM

Quote:
But you bring up a good point as well: looking at that figure, considering the number of poor in India, it doesn't seem like that's the likely average income per year

Byte, that's the problem with averages. If you have ten ballplayers sitting on a bench, and nine of them make $10,000 a year and one of them makes $1,000,000, the average (per capita) salary is about $110,000 per year. When you look at those figures you'd think that ballplayers are doing... yanno... okay. But in reality, the vast majority are on starvation wages.

The problem is, it's almost impossible for us to envision the monstrous differences in wealth. It's beyond common understanding.

The analogy that I heard which made it crystal clear to me was the football-field analogy: If you were to represent income distribution in the USA by stacks of $1000 bills on a football field, the stack at the 20 yard line would be about 0.25 inches high, the stack at the 50-yard line would be about an inch high ($50,000, the median income) and the stack at the goal line would be 16 MILES high!

Of course, if you on talk about "per capita" income, then it looks like everyone in the USA is doing... yannno... okay. And that's the USA, where income distribution is not as lopsided as India.

Quote:
You say that with urgency, but what I hear is something that freaks the hell out of me, and not for the reasons you want.

No, I say that as a prediction. I have no control over what will or won't happen, so urgency (on my part) is out of the question. Consider my comments to be fatalistic. All I'm saying is that I predict that you will not be as freaked out now as you will be then.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:34 PM

Rue: Ah, yes, also true. Concentration gradients and equilibrium constants can drive an equation left or right. Although, I think I recall that geologically, carbonate formation (and dissolution) is considered to be governed by three big reactions, and carbonates tend to not form in warm conditions, it's a cold water reaction. It's part of the reason ocean acidification has become a concern. I'll see if I can't find them.

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:38 PM

Funny thing about that, is one of the reasons I have no human children is social more so than any other factor - one of the few things I hold against my mother was that she knowingly set me loose on a world where my beliefs, my values, would be forever unwelcome, where I would be an outsider all my life, mistrusted, disliked, unwanted...

I'll be damned if imma condemn an innocent child to that - although one who has *chosen* that path, I will support so much as I can do so.

In lieu of children, I have cats (all fixed, mind you!) which are in many ways a lot like children...

Furry little spoiled rotten BAD children, that is.
*shoves one off the keyboard*

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:46 PM

I thought cats were actually our slave masters and just put up with the cutesy noises, baby talk, and petting because it's evidence of how inferior we are to them.

Yeah, I'm not having kids either. I don't know if my crazy is genetic, but it's probably not worth taking the risk.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:51 PM

Quote:
Furry little spoiled rotten BAD children, that is. *shoves one off the keyboard...*

... because it was busy typing cojnfask lczsmfdasefvcdoscndcvm ldfcjoapfkvm z/..

RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:56 PM

My sister's cat was scampering around in the middle of the night and accidentally knocked the phone off the hook AND dialed 911. The first thing she knew about it was when the doorbell rang and she saw a flashing red light through her window ...

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DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:04 PM

Piz,

The govt. sues the Amish all the time, that's what I was referring to. My brother teaches law, and this is one of the subjects he has to cover "why the amish always win." The core is basically two-fold: 1) They're always on the side of the constitutions, and 2) they never tick anyone off in the process.

If you have a legal case in which you badger the law and make yourself an annoyance, then it doesn't matter what the merits are, you are likely to lose.

re: corn, the metabolic processes of corn are very simple compared with that of fish. once corn has been eaten by a fish, it ceases to be corn and becomes fish.

Frem,

re: matrix, i really agree ;)

I've read the Winnowing, and that thought of course occurred to me. My counterpoint would be this: Re: TPTB? If it's illegal and evil, figure if they're not doing it yet, they certainly have it on the shelf, and have for decades, like Northwoods, and they damn well don't need anybody's okay to go ahead and do it.

Technologically, this can already be done. Hence my point on "localization." If you have the technology to radically upscale the production per acre, then you don't *need* some UN sponsored aid program. The people of Nigeria can deal with the issue themselves, and not just the govt. of Nigeria, because I know TPTB have a fairly decent hold on that govt., though I'll admit that it is definitely slipping. Still, they could steal almost any govt, at least for enough time to perpetrate a disaster.

I think that the power of GMO is something that needs to be in the hands of the people. The powers will do it anyway.

Re: competition vs. cooperation, remember that both are equally valid. Cooperation without check is what leads to dictatorship. I know a psychologist who has a very interesting take on Germany (this would be the designer of a notorious experiment discussed here some months ago, IIRC, I didn't mention knowing the guy.) Anyway, his take is that German society prior to WWII was so cooperative by nature, that it was an easy target for fascist takeover. Mussolini selected it for specific reasons, and a lot of international financiers backed the idea. Simply put, lie to the Germans about *what* you're doing, and tell them there's an essential greater good, and they will essentially fall in line and cooperate.

Honestly, I can't say that the US did much better in WWII. I mean of course, Americans in America, vs. Germans in Germany, neither of which were really committing atrocities, but we were both falling in line to "support the war effort" without a lot of thought to the matter of "why the hell are we invading Japan?" (or Russia if you were a German)

Quote:

A bombed out and poisoned field surrounded by piles of bones is of no use to anyone.

And yet TPTB pursue this end repeatedly. I think I know why too, but I'm not going to post it here.

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:20 PM

Rue,

On the issue of China vs. India, China has an unnaturally positive trade agreement with the US which helps it out a lot. That said, I'd generally agree. I'd add that another difference is that China has a far greater abundance of natural resources. These definitely effect things.

I do take your point that this could construct a vote in favor of capitalist-socialist hybrid over let them eat cake. I don't share that conclusion, but it's a valid argument. I could easily counter that the majority of China's GDP comes from its Laissez-faire "special development zones" which is largely communist for "places that we took over and who would secede from us if we monkeyed with their economy" like Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. Shanghai has been added to this list as an experiment.

My prediction is that the financial-industrial triangle of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Shanghai will take over China by the end of the next decade, and then the masses of one billion poor will be their problem. For the most part, I expect them to try to convert this into a labor source, but will require a sort of Samsung mindset in order to have any serious success.

Re: terraforming, yes, this was all very long term. There really won't be a need for it, every solar system will have at least one earth. I wouldn't be surprised if within neptune or uranus there was a habitable environment, but the situation that creates earth is almost a forgone conclusion. The elements separate out on the solar disc, and then again in planet formation. My guess is that the most earthlike worlds will *not* be free standing planets, but moons of large gas giants.

Chemically, humans live in cities, so we're fairly adaptable rats. Obviously, there are a number of species that we would have to take with us, particularly plants, but we would need those on our spaceship in order to make it anywhere. But we don't need another earth to live in space, we could make an artificial environment on a large space station pretty easily, at least, with less work than a lot of what we've already done. But all of this is out of the question for a people who have yet to be able to colonize Antarctica.

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 10:50 PM

Miss Byte, while I cannot confirm a genetic role in the Dark Spark, nor could I deny it - I deliberately limited any contact with my sisters family for a very long time not just to preserve their safety, but also as a check against the inclination to meddle and thus poison the well - I figured they might grow up relatively "normal" without my influence.

More fool me, cause despite that, the middle kid is ENOUGH like me to seriously creep me out, especially in light of research on the topic going as far back as the line exists, there's ALWAYS been one, and yet, only one, in each generation.

This leads me to believe there's some other factor than JUST genetics, and without a logical, scientific explaination in light of plain evidence that this is the case - there's absolutely a possibility of metaphysical or spiritual cause.

So, I think you're screwed - if you truly are a dark spark, then if you have no children, the next closest genetic line to yours is probably in for a rude shock concerning their offspring, usually between ages 9-12.

Not real comfortable with that topic, cause it wanders into the realm of no scientific explaination, and yet, there it is, undeniable and right in front of me - it upsets my teakettle more than a little, yanno ?

I dunno about typing, but Ghoster used to answer the phone when I had one of those old white AT&T office phones, she'd knock it off the cradle and meow into it - was a running joke for a long time with my associates.

Kallista is the REALLY weird one though, a while back I'd bought a box of breaded fish fillets, store brand I hadn't tried before and the picture on the box coulda been anything, not to mention it was plastic wrapped AND the filets were individually bagged seperately inside... and so I pull the box down and reach for the fries, and Kallista goes berserk, slamming her little furry self into my leg and *demanding* a share.

I utterly, absolutely REFUSE to believe that damn cat can READ, oh hell no, I don't care what it looks like, that just ain't frickin possible...
And if it is, we're all doomed anyway.

Oh, and DT ?
There's a REASON I self-identify as a Morlock, that in response to your posts.

-Frem

There always has to be a price.
-Hell Girl

RUE

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:13 PM

" I could easily counter that the majority of China's GDP comes from its Laissez-faire "special development zones" which is largely communist for "places that we took over and who would secede from us if we monkeyed with their economy" like Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc."

'Cept - China is building one new power plant - EACH WEEK. You don't get that kind of demand from a few isolated hot spots.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

PIZMOBEACH

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Piz,

The govt. sues the Amish all the time, that's what I was referring to.

So, opting out not so easy.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

SIGNYM

Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:51 AM

DT- according to what I've found, growth in special economic zones (SEZ) has come about to the detriment of rural China. The same story seems to have been repeated in India and Russia: wherever capitalism in implanted, some people get very rich and a lot of people get poorer and live shorter, nastier lives. www.indiatogether.org/2007/feb/opi-sezschina.htm

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, October 29, 2009 5:12 AM

Sig,

Again, not shooting in the dark here. You're just confirming what I already know: The economic productivity is coming from the capitalist economies that China recently conquered, not from Communism. Also, those Capitalist enterprises are now using rural China's vast population as a labor source, starting from the east.

Of course, I know lots of Chinese, so I didn't need to guess. The predictions about the economic triangle are not my own. This was first prophesied some years ago by an economist in Beijing, a communist, who advocated against the takeover of Taiwan and Hong Kong on the grounds that together with Shanghai, they would conquer China. We of course are subsidizing this inevitability, speeding up the process.

Whether the rural chinese are better off with jobs and technology I'll never be sure of, but it's no different a question for them than it is for the rest of humanity. Yes, the story in India is very similar. In Russia it's very different, but that's another story.

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, October 29, 2009 5:13 AM

As opposed to Eloi?

ETA: You know how that story ends...

Of course, it's the journey that matters